Moore-On or Moron: We’re Halfway There Edition

With the Devils at the halfway point of the 2024-25 season and on a skid before Monday’s win in Seattle, now is as good of a time as any to take the temperature of the team and drop some well-seasoned TAKES.

The New Jersey Devils officially reached the halfway point of the 2024-25 season with their 3-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on New Year’s Day. And I think at that midway point, there are two ways to look at this team.

If one was to look at the big picture, they’d see a team that after that LA game, went 12-7-1 in their previous 20 games. As you may recall, I wrote how the Devils had a successful first quarter of the season going 12-7-2 back in November. The Devils basically matched that in the second quarter of the season, and in the process, showed that their early start to the season wasn’t a fluke. More importantly, their defense shined while the team picked up impressive wins over Carolina (twice), Washington, Los Angeles, and a resurgent Pittsburgh team along the way. The Devils still sit comfortably in a playoff position and remain on pace for a 100+ point season and a return trip to the playoffs, and when the Devils are on their game, they can play with, and beat, anyone.

If one wants to look at the here and now and what have you done for me lately, they’d see the Devils losing 4 straight games out of the Christmas break before Monday’s win in Seattle. And while a loss to the aforementioned Carolina and Los Angeles teams might be understandable or acceptable, getting swept in a season series by the lowly San Jose Sharks is not. The recent skid has reaffirmed the belief that while the Devils might be talented and well-coached, they’re not a perfect team and they very much have flaws, particularly in the bottom six.

I think both of those viewpoints and opinions have merit, and while I’m not too concerned over this recent skid, I am concerned about the lack of production in general. Not just from the bottom six, but throughout the lineup. I’m also concerned that the Devils seem to have gotten away from what they were doing so well in Sheldon Keefe’s system. I don’t know if that’s the result of the team cheating for a little more offense or lackadaisical play, but I saw enough odd-man rushes recently (particularly in the Carolina loss) where I flat out said watching the game “This is the @($& we saw last year”. And that is frustrating in the sense that I thought this Devils team was past that style of play that I am not a fan of.

So with that said, now seems like as good a time as any for the halfway point edition of “Moore-On or Moron”, where I throw out my patented great takes and we debate whether I’m spot on, or if they might be the ramblings of a moron.

The Devils Best Players Need To Be Better

It’s easy to critique the bottom six, which I will do momentarily, but we need to talk about the Devils core for a second.

It’s about as general of a generalization as one can say, but it still needs to be said. Your best players need to be your best players.

So since the Christmas break, how have the Devils best players fared?

It’s a mixed bag, as one would expect.

Jack Hughes has two assists in his last five games. Jesper Bratt has three. Nico Hischier has two goals. Timo Meier has one goal. Dougie Hamilton has two assists. Luke Hughes has a goal and two assists, but by now you get the idea.

These are the players the Devils turn to for offense. Bratt and Hughes in particular are two who play at over a PPG pace, but they haven’t done so of late. They’re not getting a whole lot of help from the rest of the core either. If they, as a collective group, are not going offensively, it is going to be harder to win hockey games. It’s not necessarily impossible to win hockey games, as you can still win if you’re getting great goaltending and defense. But the Devils aren’t quite getting that either as Jacob Markstrom is a .901 in three starts and Jake Allen is a .905 in two starts. And the Devils have gotten away from what they were doing well defensively prior to the holiday break.

It’s not just that though. It’s also going 1-for-12 on the power play since Christmas. Considering part of what made the Devils a wagon was an elite level power play, a 1-for-12 stretch in the middle of the season is reminiscent of the power play going cold last season around the same time. Granted, that team had the excuse of injuries to Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton having a direct impact on the power play. What excuse does this team have? And if the Devils were indeed too reliant on their power play as I also pondered back in November, do they have an answer when the power play goes through an inevitable rut? That remains to be seen.

Ultimately, I’m not too worried about the Devils core players. As far as we know, they’re all healthy, and while its not ideal that it seems like nobody is putting the puck in the back of the net at the moment, we’re talking about players who have enough of a track record of success at this level where they should be able to figure it out and get back on track. I expect these players to be fine, but with that said, I also think its fair to expect more from them. The Devils will only go as far as their core takes them.

Verdict: Moore-On

The Devils Must Prioritize Adding a Center Over a Scoring Winger

I would’ve written this before we got the recent news about Erik Haula missing some time, and that news has only validated what I already thought about the Devils.

The Devils desperately need to upgrade at 3C at the deadline, and that needs to be a higher priority than adding a winger.

I’m not a mindreader so I can’t hazard a guess as to whether or not Haula’s injury has hampered him for some time now, but it would certainly explain why he has zero points over his last 18 games as this team’s third line center. And if I want to take it a step further, he has a goal and two assists in 29 games since Halloween.

That level of production from your third line center is simply not going to cut it, healthy or not. And while I appreciate his contributions defensively and on the penalty kill and I appreciate him continuing to play in the weeks leading up to this recent shutdown, this is also a perfect example of how advanced stats can be misleading. The fancies might suggest that Haula has been having a decent year, but the eye test says otherwise. I don’t care that he has a 52.88 xG% on the season. I care about the REAL goals that he’s not scoring and hasn’t scored in some time.

That’s not to say that I think Haula is a bad player. He’s a good player having a bad year. There’s a difference between the two, and I think he has value with the things he does well like his defensive play and his work on the penalty kill. Frankly, I think once he is healthy, he’d be the ideal solution for a Devils fourth line that hasn’t had an answer at center for most of the year.

But what can the Devils do at 3C in the meantime? Because Justin Dowling, while he certainly tries hard, probably isn’t the answer there. And I say this as someone who likes Dowling and the energy level he brings.

Yanni Gourde would certainly make sense as a rental, although he recently landed on IR himself. Mikael Granlund would as well, although his point total might be a little inflated as he’s been a fixture in San Jose’s Top Six this season. Jake Evans will be on the shortlist, although it should be noted that he’s shooting nearly 30%, so his level of production is not sustainable. Other centers like JT Miller, Dylan Cozens, and Josh Norris are probably too expensive, either in terms of contract, trade compensation, or both.

I don’t know if there’s a long-term 3C answer out there, outside of maybe a Mason McTavish trade if Kevin Weekes is to be believed. But I do believe trading for a center in general is a better use of assets than adding your run of the mill rental scoring winger, whether its Taylor Hall or Kyle Palmieri or Gustav Nyquist. And I do know the 3C issue long-term isn’t going away, given the Devils pipeline and Haula entering his age 34 season next year, the final year of his contract. This needs to be addressed in a meaningful way, preferably sooner rather than later (later being years down the road).

I get why pockets of the Devils fanbase wants a scoring winger. They continue to see Ondrej Palat in the Top Six, and 8 goals and 8 assists in 41 games doesn’t scream Top Six production, especially when he’s playing with Hughes and Bratt primarily. But this speaks to a larger conversation as a whole when it comes to roster construction and the bed the Devils made when they signed Palat in the first place. One might view Palat as a sunk cost. Others might think he’s been ok, at best. Either way, he’s not going to magically start producing better playing with Dowling and Dawson Mercer, just because the Devils added someone higher on the depth chart. I get the idea of wanting to slot players properly, but frankly, the best fit for Palat at this time is probably right where he is and doing the dirty work on the Hughes line.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit as these are long-term concerns that may or may not come to a head as soon as this summer. For now, the Devils having a better answer at 3C must take priority over a scoring winger if the Devils want any chance of making a deep playoff run, and that statement will be true this year and every year going forward.

Verdict: Moore-On

Brett Pesce Is Actually….Bad?

Speaking of advanced stats not coming close to telling the whole story, our pal CJ Turturo kicked the hornet’s nest this weekend with this tweet.

CJ is certainly entitled to his opinion and he’s more than capable of speaking for himself. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say that yes, the charts are wrong.

Watch the games.

It’s not a coincidence that the Devils as a team took off defensively once Pesce and Luke Hughes recovered from their season-opening injuries. And while Luke is naturally more gifted, Pesce plays his role well in complementing what Luke does well. There’s a reason they’ve been consistently one of the best defensive pairs in the league throughout the season. This isn’t a situation where one player is dragging the other to success, rather, its one where two players who are great at different things paired together raise both players another level or two.

Of course, its ironic for me to say watch the games and that I care about REAL goals and then immediately turn around and cite expected goals against. But again, I care about REAL goals, and with defensemen, its the real goals that they’re preventing. There have been plenty of games already where Pesce has been on the ice in late game situations with the Devils protecting a lead (a situation the Devils have done well in in general this season). There will continue to be plenty of those games down the stretch and into the postseason. That matters.

If we’re talking about the RHD on the Devils roster, there’s at least a debate between Pesce vs. Johnathan Kovacevic in those situations, which is a credit to Kovacevic for the job he’s done this year, but I think most Devils fans would want Pesce out there late protecting a lead. And if the options are between Pesce and Dougie Hamilton, is it even a debate who you’d rather have out there to protect a lead? Anyone suggesting they’d rather have Dougie Hamilton out there in that situation needs their head examined.

Pesce isn’t perfect. No defenseman is. But he’s clearly the best RHD DEFENSIVE option the Devils have right now and he has been what I expected this season when the Devils made him a priority signing on July 1. We can all see that from watching the games.

Do I think the Pesce deal will age well? That’s another conversation entirely, and I’d prefer it wasn’t for six years and into his age 35 season, even if that sixth year got the AAV down to a more cap friendly number. But I can comfortably say that in Year 1 of that deal, Pesce has been worth every penny.

Verdict: Moron, although I want to be clear that I’m not calling CJ a moron. But that said, if one genuinely believes Pesce hasn’t been good, well….that’s not a great take, now is it?

Tomas Tatar and Nathan Bastian Belong Nowhere Near a Playoff Lineup

I did mention earlier that the Devils should prioritize adding a center over wingers. But that doesn’t mean the Devils shouldn’t add wingers too.

Tomas Tatar has been in a tricky spot all season as he’s not really good enough to justify being in the Top Nine on a good playoff team, but he’s not really a fourth line player either. Tatar has 1 goal and 3 assists in 24 games since Halloween and has been an occasional healthy scratch as well. Tom Fitzgerald did a great job this offseason with just about every move he made, but the one exception has been the Tatar reunion. It simply hasn’t worked out.

Meanwhile, Bastian has put up what I would call a typical Nate Bastian type of season. He’s been ok defensively and has some sandpaper to his game, but he produces little offensively and missed a large chunk of the season due to injury. He’s also never been a particularly great skater.

I can buy the argument that the Devils lack of a true fourth line center has had a negative impact on both players, but the fourth line briefly had success when Paul Cotter was on it. Perhaps Cotter is the straw that stirs the drink there, but it does hammer home the idea that the Devils can and probably should do better with their bottom six wingers and their lack of a true fourth line center is a separate issue.

The good news is that the Devils ideal fourth line wingers are probably already on the roster. They’re Paul Cotter and Curtis Lazar. But the Devils probably won’t get Cotter properly slotted until they go add a third line LW, and they probably won’t get Lazar properly slotted until they add a bottom six center.

I don’t know what the Devils will wind up doing at the deadline, but if you give me the choice between, say Donato-Gourde-Mercer / Cotter-Haula-Lazar versus the bottom six the Devils have rolled out there for most of this season, there’s no question which one I’d take to go to battle with this spring. And I think the same could be said if you go a little lower on the 4C (perhaps Nick Bjugstad) but higher tier on the third line winger (Taylor Hall?).

Bastian might have just enough versatility as a player where he might be worth keeping around as your 13th forward for the playoffs, although I question what he’s doing that you can’t get from some rando at AHL Utica. But Tatar probably has no place on this team going forward and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him shipped out at the deadline, likely in a minor trade.

Verdict: Moore-On

(This article was written before the 1/6/25 game at Seattle. Any stats referenced do not include that game)